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Using ECMWF’s Forecasts (UEF2016)

ECMWF | Reading | 6-9 June 2016

High-impact weather is of particular interest to forecast users, and its prediction with a seamless ensemble analysis/forecast system is at the heart of ECMWF’s proposed new strategy. Weather can have high-impact by virtue of its extreme amplitude (e.g. tropical cyclones) or its longevity (e.g. heat-waves) and also because of its societal impacts to specific user communities. All these aspects present a particular challenge for forecasting systems, and demand considerable development of diagnostic and verification capabilities. UEF2016 focussed on the verification aspects with some emphasis on measuring quality of the forecast in a manner that is relevant to users. This year's title was:

Brief outline

The programme contained informative talks by ECMWF staff on the latest developments of the forecasting systems and by participants, keynote addresses on specific topics to stimulate discussion and sessions where networking was encouraged. There was also be a display area for visual demonstrations and posters. The meeting covered the following thematic areas:

High impact weather forecasts: measuring long term improvement - Forecasting of high impact weather events has become a central part of the work in NMSs, and an important aspect of the activities of commercial enterprises. The knowledge of the quality of model data and relevant ensemble-based products is essential to deliver value. The purpose of this session is to explore the use of verification scores that highlight long-term improvement of forecasts for high impact weather events.

User-oriented verification - Measures of a model performance are an important element in building users’ confidence in the forecast. In order to achieve this, such measures need to be relevant for user communities in order to allow them to identify weather situations in which the forecast is more or less reliable, and by identifying the extent to which the forecast is useful as a basis for decision-making in weather-sensitive activities. This section will explore the progress in user-oriented verification and their added values to the user communities, with a focus on ensemble-based forecasts.

Seamless verification across different time scales-NWP models provide forecasts for various time scales. From the verification viewpoint, this poses a challenge as the skill at different time scales will need to be compared even though verification questions may be different. This section will explore ideas for verification across time scales in an effort to provide forecast users with a seamless assessment of model skill.